The Coroner's Son
by I'mNotEvenSupposedToBeHereToda
Summary: Jason meets Nico di Angelo, the coroner's son, when the boy enters high school. He didn't know the boy for long, but Jason feels like he needs to return Nico to his old, happy self, and if that means trying to set him up with his friend Percy Jackson, then so be it. It's not like he has any feelings for the boy.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

The first time Jason had met the coroner's son was when his mother had died, when both of them had been really young. Hades' Funeral Parlor was the newest and only funeral home in their town. They had showed up at the best time, just in time for his mother's funeral. Jason had been twelve at the time, and the other boy, Nico, had said he was nine.

"Hi! I'm Nico di Angelo and I turned nine last month. Look at what I got for my birthday!" The small boy, who only came up to the bottom of his rib cage, shoved a spread out hand of cards in his face. Jason wasn't sure if the boy understood that he was here while his father discussed funeral details. Why did Thalia have to go talk to the coroner's daughter?

"Do you see this card right here?" Jason smiled politely, just wishing that this kid would stop talking to him. "This one's my favorite because he has the same name as my dad. He owns this place!" Well that stopped Jason in his tracks. This ADHD kid was-

"Nico!" A girl's voice hissed. The two boys turned to see Nico's sister, an olive-skinned girl with long brown hair and a green beanie. Thalia was standing right behind her and gave Jason a head nod in greeting.

"What Bianca?" The boy whined, shoving the cards into his jacket pocket. Jason had to flinch at the movement; how could he do that to those poor cards? Jason had his own trading cards sitting in a binder under his bed, not the same type as Nico's, but the same thing applied: don't damage the cards!

"I don't think he wants to hear about your stupid cards. I'm really sorry about your mother by the way," Bianca told him sincerely, her brown eyes wide with sympathy, but Jason never got a chance to thank her.

"They're not stupid Bianca! They're Mythomagic!" Nico's face was starting to get red with anger, or maybe it was because of the way he was puffing out his cheeks, but whatever it was, it was the first time he had laughed since his mother had died. "Hey, don't laugh at me," Nico pouted, puffing out his cheeks again, and suddenly Jason couldn't stop laughing. Thalia and Bianca had joined in, not to his extent, and eventually Nico even joined in

"S-sorry," Jason said through his panting, but Nico just shrugged it off..

"I suppose I can forgive you this time, but I won't go so easy on you next time, son of Zeus."

"How did you-"

"Thalia! Jason! Time to leave!" His father, Zeus, barked, already heading towards the door. The children said goodbye to each other, and Jason lay in bed smiling, thinking about his first and last (for now) encounter with the coroner's son.


	2. Chapter 2

Since his first day at high school was going to be spent treading entirely new territory, Nico knew not to expect much, but he didn't honestly think it would be this bad. And like most of the things that have gone wrong in his life, it started with Percy Jackson.

"Nico? Nico di Angelo? Dude is that you? I haven't seen you in forever!" he had shouted, halfway across his first period class mind you (how the hell had Percy managed to land himself in this math class; it was a year below his grade level). Percy crossed the room, and Nico took that time to decide he _was_, indeed, a religious man. _Please don't come over. Please don't come over. For the love of gods, I mean God, please don't come over._ Maybe it was his pronoun slip up. "Sup man, it's been, what, two years?"

"Four," he muttered, pulling a book out of his bag and hoping that the swimmer would get the clue. No such luck; Percy Jackson had always been a special level of oblivious. _He's not the only one_.

"Right, right, you must be pretty damn smart if you're in the same math class as me, er well, Algebra has too many letters for me, but since you're here too, I'm bound to pass!" And that is how Nico di Angelo was forced to sit with Percy Jackson for the rest of the semester (which meant a semester of denying his attraction). It _must_ have been the pronoun slip up; how could Percy have so many questions on the first day? They hadn't even learned anything yet!

"Thanks for all of the help Nico! I thought I was going to fail since Annabeth wasn't in my class, but you're awesome!" Did he have to clap his hand on his back like that? Was it a swimmer thing or a Percy thing? "And if you have C lunch, since you refused to tell me, you should come sit with me and Annabeth."

The classes leading up to lunch were so uneventful that Nico had considered, multiple times, banging his head on his desk just to feel something. When the bell that signaled lunch started to ring, Nico took his time packing up rather than his classmates who just rushed out. At least his slow movements would give Frank enough time to find a seat at lunch; Hazel had refused to let Nico leave the house until he had promised to sit with Frank at lunch and actually eat.

"Hey Nico, did you see the new Mythomagic deck that came out? All Roman," Frank informed around a bite of his sandwich, his face heating up when he realized his lack of manners.

"Zhang, how many times do I have to tell you that I'm done with Mythomagic?" Nico asked, dumping the contents of his near-torn paper bag on the table; how much did Hazel pack him?

"I don't know di Angelo, I'm just hoping that one day you'll stop being too scared to leave the morgue and battle me," Frank teased, actually finishing his bite of sandwich before talking.

"Damn Zhang, I never thought I'd see the day were _you_ were intimidating poor little freshmen," a boy, who looked more like a Latino elf than anything, said with a low whistle as he dropped his lunch tray down on the table. Nico figured the boy was a math whiz considering he dropped it at just the right angle for none of the contents to spill.

"Be quiet Valdez, I'm not intimidating him, I'm just trying to get di Angelo to-"

"Shut it Zhang," Nico cut him off, hoping the threat was communicated.

"di Angelo? Are you Hazel's sister? She doesn't stop talking about you." Nico would've been happy about the news if it wasn't coming from some boy that he didn't even know. "You know, the way she described you, I was sort of expecting you to be… bigger. Oh well, I'm Valdez, Leo Valdez." The boy, Leo stuck his hand out, and Nico took it, trying not to let his apprehension show through. He was stunned at how warm his hand was; was it even possible for one person to generate that much body heat?

"Nico di Angelo, nice to meet you." Hopefully he didn't come across as too threatening or whatever Percy kept saying to him through all of math class.

"So is anyone else joining us? Jason or Piper?" Frank asked, finishing off his sandwich and throwing away the plastic bag. The first name struck a chord in Nico, but he wasn't sure why. _It's just from spending too much time wanting to be an Argonaut rather than an astronaut._

"Piper has this lunch but she's only gonna be in cafeteria some days, something about fighting for vegetarian lunches, and Jason was asking his Italian teacher about maybe getting a tutor," Leo explained, talking a mile a minute around what must've been twenty French fries.

"Hey Nico, aren't you-"

"Sup guys, how are your classes going? Oh, hey, I'm Jason Grace, what's your name?" Even the way this kid talked and the way he looked struck a chord, multiple chords, within Nico, and that little scar above his lip was just – _nope, not thinking that; I am not going to follow that train of thought._

"I'm Nico di Angelo." Why did he have to look at him like that, like he recognized him? How many people had Hazel talked to about him?

"_You're _Nico di Angelo? I think you might be my new Italian tutor, uh, if you agree that is," Jason said, smiling like Nico might spook if he spoke too fast or loud.

_Oh gods, you've gotta be kidding me._ He didn't even have the heart to correct his pronouns.


	3. Chapter 3

On the walk home that evening, Nico decided that he _maybe_ shouldn't have agreed to have one-on-one tutoring sessions with Jason Grace, Golden Boy Extraordinaire as Leo liked to call him; Nico had thrown himself into his father's work the past few summers to avoid Percy. Okay, so maybe this situation wasn't quite so drastic, compared to a sleep-away summer camp, but this was still going to be horrible!

"Hey Nico, are you okay?" Hazel asked slowly as she walked through the door, actually managing to startle Nico; was it genetics that made it so easy for them to sneak up on people? "Did you have a bad day at school? Were people mean to you? Did you sit with Frank?"

He forced himself to smile for his sister's sake; there wasn't anything _seriously_ wrong, he was just a little annoyed with himself. "You should be proud of me Hazel; I'm going to be someone's tutor, and it gives me community service hours."

Nico didn't think Hazel could look more surprised if he told her something else about himself. "Really Nico? That's wonderful? Who are you tutoring? What class?"

He looked through the movie case beside the T.V., wondering if it was worth dropping the boy's name. "Some guy named Jason Grace; him and Frank seem to be friends."

"Jason's wonderful! He's really nice Nico, I'm sure you're just going to love him!" Did he Hazel notice the way the muscles in his back grew taut when she said that? Hopefully not. "He's really smart, almost as smart as Annabeth actually; what could he possibly need help in?"

"How do you know Annabeth? What exactly happens when you go to summer camp Hazel? And Grace needs help in Italian, says his mom wasn't happy with his grade last year, and as the only fluently Italian person in the whole school, I was nominated." Nico's fingers hover over _Immortals_, fighting the temptation to pick the movie laced with Greek Mythology, and instead slides down quite a few places to rest over _Mulan_. The movie wasn't really his style, but Hazel liked it. Nico just thought she liked movies with highly built Asian men because it reminded her of Frank.

"Really Nico? I'm starting to think you choose this movie because _you_ like it rather than for teasing me," Hazel laughed, pulling out the papers that needed signed and setting them on the table for their father to sign when he finally got home from work. Nico supposed he should probably do the same, maybe even leave a little note about the whole tutoring thing; since he brought Hazel home, he had been trying to be more involved in their lives.

"What can I say Hazel? I like it when China's in good hands." Whenever Hazel laughed at his jokes, no matter how terrible they may be, it never failed to get Nico to crack a smile.

"Wow Nico, you can be the batman of China with that attitude, so what's for dinner tonight?" The schedule the two had fallen into, each making Dinner every other day, had become Lavesque family recipe day or di Angelo family recipe day, and Hazel often talked about how wonderful to would be if their father brought some family recipes of his own to the table. Nico didn't have the heart to tell her that, beyond the two of them, there wasn't a living human being that his father cared for.

"Today's meal is just some old-fashion spaghetti, and this way, you'll have lunch for tomorrow too." Hazel's favorite meal of his was his spaghetti, made with homemade sauce; she liked the quality time that they spent together preparing it and, admittedly, so did Nico. Whenever he worked with Hazel, cutting up tomatoes and adding spices, the memories of doing the exact same thing with Bianca and his mother surfaced, and Nico was never happier than when he was spending time with the three most important women in his life, even if two were only there in his memories. "So I give you until 'A Girl Worth Fighting For' and then we're making some sauce."

"Nico di Angelo, you've got yourself a deal." Nico has no idea why they have to shake on it, but he takes Hazel's hand anyway, giving one firm shake and faking a determined look.

XXX

Nico's not sure he likes the way that Leo is leaning over his shoulder, practically salivating over his spaghetti; does he have to get this close? Can't Leo drool over his food from, roughly, five seats away?

"Hey Nico, I'm not much of an Italian guy, but that spaghetti smells _really_ good," his voice lilted in a way that left Nico thinking it was an implication.

"Hey Leo, I'm not much of sharing guy, so why don't you ask Grace for food, seeing as he's your best friend and all?"

Frank almost choked on his food from laughing at the combination of Nico's response and Leo face. "Wow Nico, do you not let Hazel eat any of your spaghetti either?" he teased.

"Shut up Frank," he muttered, shoving a fork full spaghetti into his mouth. Nico thought Leo had taken his suggestion to bug Grace for food when he leaned over and whispered something in his ear, but when Jason pulled back, his face red, and yelled "shut up Leo!" Nico kind of figured he was talking about something else.

"Hey Nico, do you think you can help me practice verbs and their tenses sometime? I don't really remember anything from last year," Jason asked, sounding apologetic, like it was horrible that he forgot, despite Nico being his tutor.

"Yeah, but I help my dad out at work most days, so I don't know if you'd want to study there." He didn't really feel like explaining how he helps his father with funeral arrangements; people don't usually react kindly to stuff like that. If he remembered correctly, Percy's exact words had been 'that's fucking weird dude, but my mom says my dad thought he could talk to fish, so it's cool'.

"Hey dude, it's up to you. My mom really wants me to get tutored, and none of my activities this year go past six, so I'm free any time after." _Ugh, why does he have to be so nice? Seriously, this guy could put Percy to shame._


End file.
